Chapter 26 WREN
WREN
“You want that version of me.”
It isn’t a question.
“Look at me.” I do. His hand comes up under my jaw, tilts my face to his. “We do this my way tonight.” His grip tightens. “And you’re not going to think about him once.”
His mouth comes down before I can say anything back, and he kisses me like he’s already decided how tonight ends. His hand slides from my jaw to my lower back and pulls, and my hips hit his, and his tongue is past my lips before I’ve decided to let it in.
I let it in.
I make a sound against his mouth, relief and want all at once.
His mouth moves to my throat and I tip my head back and give it to him.
“You’re done with him.” Low, at my ear. “Tonight. Now.”
His hand catches the hem of my shirt and drags it up and off.
Then he turns me, one hand on my hip, one between my shoulder blades, and walks me forward until I’m standing right at the window, close enough that my breath ghosts the glass.
The room’s dark behind us; out there the city drops away—the dark river, the lights strung along the far bank, the whole sleeping sprawl of it forty floors down.
He fits himself against my back. Both hands slide up to cover my breasts, and his thumbs drag across my nipples, slow, again and then again, until my head drops back against his shoulder and my breath goes ragged.
When I open my eyes we’re both there in the dark mirror of the window—me half-bare, him over me, watching me watch us.
“Look at that.” His voice is right at my ear. “Whole city out there.”
I’m looking.
“And not one of them gets to see this.” His hand drags down my stomach. “Just me.” His mouth moves to the side of my throat. “Mine.”
His hand slides to the waistband of my shorts and pushes them down, and I step out of them, and now there’s nothing between me and the glass but his hand at my stomach.
“Hands on the glass, Wren.”
I put my hands on the glass.
His fingers find me and my forehead drops against the glass. He works me open, his mouth at my ear.
“I’m right here.” Low, certain. “Nobody’s getting near you tonight. Just me.”
I push back against his hand.
“Soaked.” His teeth catch my earlobe. “You’re going to come on my fingers before I’m even inside you.”
I am fogging the window with every breath and saying his name in a voice I don’t recognize.
“Jace—I can’t—I need—”
“I know what you need.”
And then he turns me.
He works his belt and zipper open, fast, and frees himself—still dressed, still in control.
Then he lifts me, one arm hooking under me, and my back meets the glass and my legs lock around his waist and the whole city is behind me now, forty floors of dark, and all I can see is him and all he’s looking at is me.
He pushes in slow, his eyes never leaving mine.
A moan breaks out of me and he watches it happen on my face.
He drives into me deep, holding my eyes the whole time, and the eye contact undoes me.
This is the version of him nobody else gets.
Not the city. Not anyone. Just me, pinned between the cold glass and the heat of him, watching his control slip one degree at a time.
“Eyes on me.” His voice drops, all command. “Stay right here.”
“Jace—” His name is all I have. I’m right at the edge and he can see it.
“I’ve got you.” His forehead drops to mine, his hips don’t stop. “Nobody’s getting to you. Not ever.”
Five weeks of bracing for a sound at the door, and it all lets go at once, and I am coming around him with my arms locked behind his neck and my face pressed to the side of his and his name breaking apart in my mouth.
“That’s it.” Hoarse. Wrecked. “That’s it, Wren.”
He follows me over a few strokes later, his whole body going tight, his face buried in my throat, holding me to the glass and to him like he’s not ready to let either of us go.
We stay like that, both of us spent, his breath going hot and uneven against my collarbone. The city glitters on, forty floors down.
When he lifts his head he brushes a piece of hair off my face, slow, his thumb dragging along my cheek after it. The command is gone. What’s left is a softness he doesn’t show anyone.
“You’re so beautiful,” he says, quiet.
It makes me feel shy, which is insane after everything we just did. But that’s what he does to me. I am falling for this man, hard, and there is nothing I can do to stop it.
He eases out of me and lowers my feet to the floor, steadying me when my knees don’t quite hold. Then he bends and sweeps me up against his chest, and I put my head against him without deciding to.
“Where are we going?”
“Bed.”
I close my eyes against his shoulder and let him carry me down the hall.
He takes me into his room.
Not the guest room.
His.
He sets me on the bed. The sheets are cold against my skin. He pulls the duvet over me, slides in beside me, and reaches across to switch off the lamp.
The room goes blue with river light.
He turns onto his side and pulls me back into him. My spine fits against his chest. His face settles in my hair, one hand warm and flat on my stomach.
“Sleep.”
I lie there in the dark with his arm heavy across me and his breath slow against the back of my neck.
A hooded figure stood in my bedroom this morning.
Somewhere in the hours since then, I stopped being afraid.
I am not afraid right now.
I don’t have to listen for sounds at the door. Not tonight.
He took it on.
And the part of me that has been carrying it for five weeks finally puts it down.
I find his hand in the dark and lace my fingers through his.
“Thank you.”
His arm tightens around me. He presses a kiss to the top of my head.
“Sleep, Wren.”
I do.